Much of the stock in trade of the humorist lies in his attack on the pedant, the pompous, the great, the new-rich, the over-important of one kind or another. Since inhibition wears on us, the great inhibitions are directly attacked by the humorist.

He was a man of forty, handsome, a little over-important, but he understood his business well enough. He diagnosed the wound as a fracture of the head and dressed and bandaged it, promising to return that evening with a soothing potion. For Esperance he prescribed a healing lotion for the many little scratches, which were of no gravity.

Fox-hunting is a first-class sport; but one of the most absurd things in real life is to note the bated breath which certain excellent fox-hunters, otherwise quite healthy minds, speak of this admirable, but not over-important pastime.

But in the mass of the unconventional one finds here and there, like nuggets of gold in sand, the true reformers of the world. The "poseurs" in custom have their analogies in the pompous, over-dignified and over-important; the affected, in a word.